Atheism requires as much faith as religion? bearvspuma : The only problem with this rationalization is that ita s assuming all athiests are so because theya re intelligent in the ways of science and reasoning and all people that believe in a form of god are unintelligent.
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<quoted text>Poly, the prevailing theory is that something expanded and blew a big bubble, condensing something into matter that became those particles and their derivatives, including us. The interactions of these particles keeps blowing the bubble bigger.

<quoted text>Clearly you did not understand my argument. If there was an earliest life, then anything before it was non-life. That is the definition of 'earliest'. But causes come before the effects (part of the nature of causality). So any cause for the *earliest* life had to be non-living.<quoted text>This is wrong. Science shows that life is a complex collection of chemical reactions and nothing else. There is every reason to believe the organization required comes about via the laws of nature and that, therefore, life came from non-life.

<quoted text>I disagree. It takes no miracle to organize the basic chemicals of life in a way that they sustain their reactions. And that is what life is: a self-sustaining collection of chemical reactions.

You are so far behind the times it's scary, scientists at Arizona state have begun new investigations into lifes origin rejecting the premise that life is like baking a cake,..all you need is the right chemicals in the proper amount and walla! life! It's a 19th century concept.

<quoted text>Clearly you did not understand my argument. If there was an earliest life, then anything before it was non-life. That is the definition of 'earliest'. But causes come before the effects (part of the nature of causality). So any cause for the *earliest* life had to be non-living.<quoted text>This is wrong. Science shows that life is a complex collection of chemical reactions and nothing else. There is every reason to believe the organization required comes about via the laws of nature and that, therefore, life came from non-life.

You said particles are fuzzy. Not hard thingies. Perhaps that fuzzy stuff is thought, waves of some sort that then gathers other fuzzy stuff to create "life". Waves shaping waves. Kind of creating its own little world.

<quoted text>You said particles are fuzzy. Not hard thingies. Perhaps that fuzzy stuff is thought, waves of some sort that then gathers other fuzzy stuff to create "life". Waves shaping waves. Kind of creating its own little world.Fuzz creates the hard stuff that then creates more fuzz.We have fuzzy thinking Topix atheists, so it must be possible.Or something like that.

When you have a graduate degree in physics, I'll give your arguments credibility. Right now you're just a Topix scientist, and that doesn't amount to much.

<quoted text>Just because God knows what choices you will make doesn't mean He makes those choices for you.Simple as that.

That's correct, but what I said is still true. Here's why:

If the future is knowable, then there is fate. It doesn't matter who, if anyone, knows that fate, it's if it is knowable at all.

Now supposedly God is not only omniscient, but also omnipotent, which necessarily means that God not only knows the future, but created it too.

And if you look at what you said "Just because God knows what choices you will make" , well, if God knows what choices you will make, then that is what you do. You might think you have free will, but that is because you can't see the future. You are blissfully ignorant of your fate. But God knows, and you are his little automaton. Sorry, but that's how it would work. And is yet another reason why the whole Christian ideology clockwork falls apart. Christian ideology is predicated on the idea of free will, but it also makes claims about an omniscient and omnipotent God. Sorry, can't have both. Fail.

I find this concept very easy to understand, but somehow religious people have a hard time getting it. I have a little pet theory that those who go in for magical thinking really have cognitive problems with certain types of logic, just as religious people claim that atheists lack some special God detector.

<quoted text>It makes sense, and to emphasize a portion of a phrase you used above:"allows us to make the best choice possible."*Allow**Choice*That indicates, to me, we're only exercising a semblance of free will in an environment that we have very little latitude in the choices available to draw from. The discussion surrounding free will is always thought provoking, because at times you can almost convince yourself we do have free will in what we do from day to day, but upon further examination, we're really at the whim of our environment.There is one thing we do have 100% free will in.The choice to die.Any of us can choose to die in various ways, and that is pure free will if a person chooses that, but, who wants to choose death in order to exercise 100% free will?

If we truly had free will we would never be able to prove it. We could however prove we did not, if someone knew the future, thus negating the possibility of free will.

<quoted text>You said particles are fuzzy. Not hard thingies. Perhaps that fuzzy stuff is thought, waves of some sort that then gathers other fuzzy stuff to create "life". Waves shaping waves. Kind of creating its own little world.Fuzz creates the hard stuff that then creates more fuzz.We have fuzzy thinking Topix atheists, so it must be possible.Or something like that.

When you get your graduate degree in physics, I'll give your arguments credence. Until then, you're simply a Topix scientist, and that doesn't amount to very much.

<quoted text>It does apply, how can you have an absolute standard of evil, without an absolute standard of good?You are appealing to that as the basis for your argument, my question is, upon what basis do you make that appeal?Where do you get absolute morality from?

I don't. The question is a subjective one, based on your opinion. No absolute morality required.

I am troubled by the quality of maturity, rationality, and intellect that has recently gathered on this forum. People such as mtimber and EmpAtheist, among others.The quality is too high. It's unnatural for this forum.Something must be happening.

Free will is just the ability to take a course of action based upon emotion instead of training and experience. Taking risks one doesn't have to. The soul's desires to experience versus the conscious mind's "knowing" cause and effect.

So if you do something based on "training and experience" you are not exerting free will? Wha?

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